Littlefield Historical Research specializes in research, documentation, and writing on the history of water rights, navigability of rivers and other waterways, interstate compacts, environmental problems, natural resources, land claims and uses, mining, Native Americans and Tribal historical issues, corporate histories, cultural resources management, as well as historic preservation. The author of
Conflict on the Rio Grande: Water and the Law, 1879-1939 (University of Oklahoma Press, 2008),
Douglas R. Littlefield, Ph.D., has over twenty-seven years of experience in forensic historical consultation and expert witness services in support of litigation – including testimony, depositions,
affidavits, and/or written expert reports. Recipient of the National Council on Public History’s
Consultant Award for the year 2008, Littlefield has provided professional services for a lengthy list of clients, including state and local governments, law firms, and private parties.
Together with his associates, Christine Andersen and Sande De Salles, Littlefield offers over forty-five
cumulative years of experience providing expertise with complex historical
research and documentation. This work has included document location and analysis, report preparation, and Littlefield’s expert witness testimony before federal and state courts, governmental commissions and boards, as well as in
four original jurisdiction actions before the United States Supreme Court.

Research for clients has been conducted in the U.S. National Archives and many of its branches
throughout the United States, multiple state and historical society archives around the country, and in records still held directly by federal, state, and local
government agencies – in some cases using the federal Freedom of Information Act and states’ open-records
“sunshine” laws. Such research projects, of course, have included all related published governmental records whether on the federal, state, or local levels.

Records have been retrieved and analyzed from United States Government sources including many federal agencies and their predecessors (as well as similar state and local agencies) such as:
multiple U.S. Presidential Libraries, Bureau of Reclamation, Bureau of Land Management, Bureau of Indian Affairs, Forest Service, Geological Survey, National Park Service, Soil Conservation Service, United States military branches, U.S. Supreme Court, U.S. Congress, as well as the Departments of the Interior, Commerce, Agriculture, Justice, and State
(to name a few).

Similar research has been conducted in many local and state historical societies, university archives, local and county
government offices, as well as in court filings, transcripts, and other court records.